One Future Collective is an organization that works towards building compassionate youth social leadership through the use of art, education, community intervention and policy advocacy – across verticals of gender justice, mental health, legal reform and development policy.

Sex work in India has had a plethora of legalisation framework issues till date. While the de facto criminalization is precarious for both policy and legislation, decriminalization of sex work is necessary for the physical and emotional inviolability of sex workers, their rights to life, labour, health, and their reproductive and sexual rights. According to the National AIDS Control Organization, there exist 8,00,000 documented sex workers in India-unofficial figures run to further staggering...

Sex work in India is problematic to say the least. In signing the International Convention, the Trafficking Protocol, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as well as the Convention for Elimination of All Kinds of Discrimination Against Women, India has evidenced the legislative motive of the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956, which does not expunge sex workers for their contribution to the sex trade. Yet it fails to preserve their rights or protect their persons as sex workers continue to remain replaceable pawns in a vicious network of organized crime.

At the outset, let me clarify that I have no personal experience with any of the technological illustrations I’m about to use in the following piece. I stay far away from mobile games (mostly because I’m terrible at them) but I do defend the right of the more competent, to have them and unabashedly play them. This article is not a case of sour grapes; it is however an observing of sorts of a rather troubling pattern of policing that percolates down to something as seemingly trivial as mobile phone games.

In the Indian Penal Code, 1860, a veritable tome that makes for the most literal symbol of justice served, the provisions relating to criminal defamation sit cosily between sections pertaining to cruelty meted out to a wife by her husband, and criminal intimidation. Section 499 of the Indian Penal Code criminalises speech that is purported to vilify or malign the reputation of any person. Section 500 outlines the punishment for criminal defamation, which...

Parliamentarian Shashi Tharoor’s 2018 bill on the restoration of the sexual, reproductive and menstrual rights of women creates a space at the table for a conversation which has so far only been confined to the more liberal mindsets of the country. By putting forth a bill which crystallizes women’s agency and independence in a positive sense, the questions plaguing women’s emancipation shift from an abstract sort of in-the-air discussion about their theoretical rights,...

The true impact of the book doesn’t quite strike you until you’ve actually finished reading The Bastard of Istanbul. The story is too riveting for one to care about anything but the interspersed threads of the characters’ individual stories. Authored by Elif Shafak, parts of the book are set in her motherland Turkey, while others are set in the American cities of Phoenix, Arizona and San Francisco, California. The story traces the lives of four generations of women and how they interconnect with each other, many decades and many hidden secrets later.

In the Monsoon Session of the Parliament last year, Mr. Rajeev Satav pushed for the unconventional. A Member of Parliament from Hingoli, Maharashtra, Mr. Satav sought to introduce the Paternity Benefit Bill, 2017, which aimed to ensure gender equality in terms of child care. The Bill was to complement the Maternity Benefit Act, 2016 by filling in the gaps in the latter, and promoting inclusive child care. Mr. Satav had initially observed that the lack of paternal child care leaves reflected the stereotype that child rearing was the woman’s chore to handle. The push for legislating paternity leaves came from a growing consciousness of gender equal parenting which provides a much more holistic upbringing for the child. With private companies opening up to the possibility of longer paternal leaves, the state took the initiative to ensure parental leaves across organized and unorganized sectors.

The month-old Sabarimala judgment given by the Supreme Court of India has opened the floodgates to a massive nationwide conversation on how Indians view women, morality and the normalization of the inherently problematic ways in which we treat both. Whether it is addressing the stigma associated with menstruation, or the parallelism with the #MeToo movement, or taking on the broader aspect of institutionalized gender discrimination, Sabarimala has pulled its fair share of skeletons out of the closet. However, has the seemingly straightforward verdict in Sabarimala paved the way for something even greater?

‘This guy is gonna be in trouble after 10-15 years…@ #METOO…’ the caption to the photo read. Three others on the family whatsapp group had expressed how hilarious the forward was with an assortment of laughing emojis. I was stunned.
If someone played the associative word game with me, my instinctive response to the #MeToo movement, would be 'discomfort'. As it should be. The entire process of addressing sexual harassment is a discomfiting one....

India is divisively governed by its personal law. There are indeed very few boundaries the gospel truth of religious customs will not broach. And for as many ardent followers it fosters, it makes a proportionate number of sharp tongued critics. The Hon’ble Supreme Court of India is currently hearing the petition filed by Advocate Sunita Tiwari, praying for a blanket ban on the practice of female circumcision or khatna and further rendering it...